World-first for wordsmiths
Award-winning author Amy Vought Barker is heading up Remix My Lit, an innovative project that provides publishing opportunities – with a twist – for young and emerging writers.
The twist is that established writers are actively encouraging others to take their words and rework them, without fear of being charged with plagiarism.
Based within the ARC Centre for Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Remix My Lit is a world-first web-based project that makes stories available for creative appropriation by others.
Remix My Lit has been created with the express aim of providing opportunities for writers to engage with quality text in a digital environment, unencumbered by traditional copyright restrictions.
The project will culminate in the publication of an anthology containing the original pieces alongside the best of the reworked versions. The volume will also be freely available online for download.
New short stories by nine established authors, including Kim Wilkins, James Phelan and Cate Kennedy, are available for the taking, for remix purposes.
Ms Barker (pictured) is the first to admit that the notion of writers reworking literary works is far from new. Parody and pastiche, for example, have long been tools of the literary trade.
‘What distinguishes this world-first initiative from earlier attempts at literary sampling is the use of works by living authors, as opposed to long-dead, non-copyright restricted authors,’ Ms Barker said.
‘What’s different also is the culture. There’s an existing remix culture and a generation for whom this is the accepted way of doing things – Gen Y, for example, don’t question it.’
One of the highlights of the project so far has been the live multimedia remix that took place at Federation Square as part of the Melbourne Writer’s Festival.
A standout remixer on the day was a 10 year old boy named JJ who came armed with his laptop and a head full of great ideas. He experienced the thrill of seeing his remixed text broadcast live on the big screen with a VJ mixing music and video on the spot to match his prose.
Hopefully it will be the start of a brilliant literary career for the eager young writer and others keen to embrace new media opportunities.
A unique licensing arrangement enables writers to remix or ‘mash-up’ the original stories in any way they choose, as long as they acknowledge the original authors, and the remix is for non-commercial use.
Elliot Bledsoe, a Project Officer at Creative Commons Australia, said the focus is on how to make copyright more appropriate for the digital environment.
Mr Bledsoe is involved in open content licensing research. In particular, his work focuses on the Creative Commons licensing system, an international initiative that makes cultural productions available to share, remix, reuse – legally.
Remix My Lit is co-funded by Story of the Future at the Australia Council for the Arts, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at QUT.
Amy Vought Barker is the 2008 winner of the Premier of Queensland Literary Award in the Emerging Author Category for her novel Omega Park, set in a fictional housing commission estate on the Gold Coast.
www.remixmylit.com (non-government site)
Story: Antoinette Bauer.
Last reviewed 15 December 2008
